This biography of Al Hajjaj Bin Youssef Al Thaqafi looks back on his cruelty, his clemency and his loyalty, and paints the portrait of a controversial regent.
Helpless, the young convent student Richard has to watch as his mother Sarazenin Zobeida is condemned by the inquisitor Heinrich Institoris as a witch and burned at the stake. From then on, Richard swears revenge on Institoris for what he did to his family. He can escape and is taken by the merchant Jakob Fugger. He wants to teach him not only to seek blind revenge, but to manipulate people like puppets and thus to reach his goals. The two travel from Florence to Rome to influence the upcoming election of the pope and to witness the power struggle between the Medicis and the Borgias up close.
In 1941. Feng Jiusi, the young police officer working within the British Concession, witnessed the death of a member of the underground Chinese Communist Party and was unfortunately marked as a suspect by the CCP. Meanwhile, the Japanese were amid clearing the anti-Japanese factions in Tianjin as they prepared to take over the British-French concession. As an undercover CCP member in the police force, Feng Jiusi must prove his loyalty to the CCP as he works to uncover the plot of the Japanese.
The year is 1941. Viktor Shvets, a state security officer, organizes underground resistance against the Nazi occupation under the name of Gustav Schwartz. As a result of his activities, hundreds of people become part of the resistance, commit sabotage, distribute leaflets and prepare an uprising. Vasily Afonov becomes the leader of the underground.
The tumultuous life of the fallen Isoroku Yamamoto is depicted, along with his family, friends, and subordinates, his bonds with the women who loved and watched over him, and the sorrows of the nameless people who have disappeared in the torrent of history.
When starving mobs begin rioting in the streets of Moscow, Soviet leaders believe they have no recourse but to seize the Alaskan pipeline to force the United States to end the grain embargo that has brought turmoil to the U.S.S.R.